Trump says US to ‘run Venezuela’ after Maduro captured
Susan Heavey and Jana Winter |
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is in a New York detention centre after President Donald Trump ordered an audacious US raid to capture the South American leader and take control of the country and its vast oil reserves.
As part of the dramatic operation early on Saturday that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas and included strikes on military installations, US Special Forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transported them via helicopter to a US Navy ship offshore before flying them to the US
“We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump told a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
For months, his administration criticised Maduro, 63, over what it called his involvement in shipping drugs to the US.
It ramped up pressure with a massive military build-up in the Caribbean and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug-running boats.
While many Western allies oppose Maduro and say he stole Venezuela’s 2024 election, Trump’s boasts about controlling the nation and exploiting its oil revived painful memories of past US interventions in Latin America, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some experts questioned the legality of an operation to seize the head of state of a foreign power, while Democrats said they were misled during recent Congress briefings.
Trump said major US oil companies would move back into Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, and refurbish badly degraded oil infrastructure – a process experts said could take years.
He said he was open to sending US forces into Venezuela.
“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he said.
A plane carrying Maduro landed near New York City on Saturday night, and he was flown to the city by helicopter before being taken by a large convoy to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Images released by US authorities showed the leader handcuffed and blindfolded during the flight, and later being led down a hallway at the offices of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, where he was heard wishing a “happy New Year”.
Indicted on various federal charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, Maduro is expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Monday.
It is unclear how Trump plans to oversee Venezuela. US forces have no control over the country, and Maduro’s government appears to still be in charge, with no appetite for co-operating with Washington.
Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, appeared on Venezuelan television with other top officials to decry what she called a kidnapping.
“We demand the immediate release of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez said, calling Maduro “the only president of Venezuela”.
A Venezuelan court ordered Rodriguez to assume the position of interim president.
Trump did not say who would lead Venezuela when the US ceded control, but appeared to rule out working with opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado.
“She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” he said.
In Venezuela, the streets were mostly quiet after a rush for groceries and fuel. Soldiers patrolled some parts and small pro-Maduro crowds gathered in Caracas.
Many Venezuelan migrants around the world erupted in celebration.
An estimated 7.7 million Venezuelans – 20 per cent of the population – have left the country since 2014.
The UN Security Council plans to meet on Monday to discuss the actions, which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as “a dangerous precedent”.
Russia and China, both major backers of Venezuela, criticised the US.
“China firmly opposes such hegemonic behaviour by the US, which seriously violates international law, violates Venezuela’s sovereignty and threatens peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean,” China’s foreign ministry said.
Trump’s comments about an open-ended military presence in Venezuela echoed the rhetoric around past invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which ended in American withdrawals after years of costly occupation and thousands of US casualties.
A US occupation “won’t cost us a penny” because the United States would be reimbursed from the “money coming out of the ground”, Trump said, referring to Venezuela’s oil reserves, a subject he returned to repeatedly during Saturday’s press conference.
Reuters
